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After being found not guilty on charges of sexual assault against four men between 2001 and 2013 last month, actor Kevin Spacey is attempting a comeback.

Speaking to Piers Morgan, the 64-year-old admitted to “pushing the boundaries” in reference to allegations of inappropriate behaviour that scuttled his career in 2017.

When asked to clarify what he meant by “pushing the boundaries”, the double Oscar winner said: “Being too handsy, touching someone sexually in a way that I didn’t know at the time they didn’t want.”

Spacey is not out of the woods yet and is still embroiled in a civil trial over an allegation, which he obviously denies, that he sexually assaulted a man in 2008.

Lamenting his recent bad luck on Piers Morgan Uncensored, Spacey said that he had been forced to auction off his home in Baltimore, where he has lived since 2016, to cover the “many millions” he owes in legal bills.

Since Oprah retired, the Piers Morgan show has seemingly become the staging post for celebrities mounting their comeback, and Spacey used the platform to tell Piers that he had “been gentle” with people he allegedly groped.

“You want to be gentle. You want to see if they’re going to respond positively.”

Morgan asked him: “Would you say all of that was consensual or was it an attempt at seduction, that if it was repelled, by definition becomes I guess non-consensual, that if you’re being handsy, if you’re groping people, and they don’t want to do it …”

To which Mr Spacey replied: “… then they should let you know they don’t want to do it so that you can understand it’s non-consensual and stop.”

Asked if he could understand that a young actor might worry that someone with his influence could damage their career if they rejected his advances, Mr Spacey said: “Yes”.

That’s a rather short answer to the question of how perceived ‘power’ has led to some truly disgusting behaviour in Tinseltown. Or as Spacey calls it: “Bad, bad, bad behaviour.”

In May, Mr Spacey denied fresh allegations against him which aired in the Channel 4 documentary Spacey Unmasked.

Actors Ruari Cannon and Danny De Lillo both alleged inappropriate behaviour by Mr Spacey in the documentary. Cannon alleged that Mr Spacey touched him inappropriately in public at a press night for an Old Vic theatre production in 2013. Mr Spacey said the allegation was “ridiculous and it never happened”.

Hollywood stars including Sharon Stone, Stephen Fry and Liam Neeson have recently called for Spacey to be allowed to return to acting, with Stone saying “I can’t wait to see Kevin back at work. He is a genius.”

It will be interesting to see if Hollywood takes Spacey back. He may have been “gentle” with his accusers, but Harvey Weinstein was not, and in between the two Hollywood icons lies a grey area where abuse of power has gone on for far too long. Hey, I loved Keyser Söze and House of Cards was dull after Spacey left, but where do we draw the line on sexual harassment?

Rest assured though that the impish Piers Morgan will continue to drag the muddy waters as he fills the void left by Oprah and Jerry Springer.

Watch Spacey’s contrition below if you can stomach one and a half hours. Piers was ‘gentle’ though.

[source:bbc]